The only people who can make the culture better are the consumers of that culture. Get rid of the teacher unions and the William Ayers curricula and teach them what good writing is and to demand it and the "culture" will improve because there will be money in doing so.

The fact that mass murderers existed (and continue to exist) in authoritarian societies is pretty much all the proof that the ideologically challenged need to understand that psychopaths are immune to cultural persuasion.

The things in film and on TV effect people - especially borderline nuts.

People talk out of two sides of their mouth on this issue. No sexism or racism on TV/movies 'cause that has a bad effect on people - but Mass murder and normalizing killing - sorry no effect on real people. "Don't censor Hollywood!!!".

The last 50 years has clapped its hands for victories in a war on Judeo-Christian morality that restrains evil, and also on the Christian message that men have a real hope for eternal life that provides them a meaning to the chaos developing from the mega doses of knowledge available suddenly.

Holmes had the latest mega dose of knowledge in his brain neuroscience studying perception ( Plato redux), and it literally destroyed his person from hopelessness. He defaulted to the zombie like Joker of a comic book fantasy he percieved as real in his self indulgent game.

Peggy made our culture immeasurably better by going all weak in the knees for Commiebama in '08. She sees a culture all blown to hell but at the moment of truth she threw in her lot with Doctor Destruction. No more Peggy Noonans. No more weak kneed "conservatives."

Though always optimistic about the possibilities of the American social system, self-improvement authors of 156 years ago lamented the moral disintegration of character. John Todd, author of 'The Young Man' (1856), described his time as one of "failures in business, of cheating and awful delinquencies of moral character -- an age of suicides, of maniacs and of murders."

My frustration about Aurora is that people with agendas -- Noonan among them -- are going to relentlessly hammer on the nonsensical idea that there's some deeper problem with society, morality, or the law that let to this.

It seems to me that Noonan has taken something of an overtone reflective of an underlying issue which can't be presented because it is so passe' and yet subtle and controversial. What part of 'Thou shall not kill' do you not understand? That delves into Jewish and Christian practice and reflection. The movies are in part an entertainment titillating at denying that prohibition. Which isn't so bad perhaps if there is something balancing, such as religion or law. Religion is a bit in the corner. As for law, I wonder about the influence of Justice Kennedy's decisions such as that in regard to the Missouri 17 year old murderer who cheekily predicted in spite of what the law said that he wouldn't be executed and the Justice proved him right.

Some of the sadness and frustration following Aurora has to do with the fact that no one thinks anyone can, or will, do anything to make our culture better.

Is Noonan still looking for some worldly savior to come and create some utopian heaven on earth? Still??

Sadness and frustration? What is sad is this woman's utter cluelessness.

Evil exists in the world. It has existed in the world for a long time. It often causes suffering, sometimes horrific suffering. Much of the time, such evil and suffering is caused precisely by those who sell people on the idea that they can, and will, do something to make our culture better.

The elitism that continues to spew from Noonan is what is part of the problem, the idea that if only we had the right people, the right experts, the best and the brightest, then these lords would engineer a better society.

Noonan's pals in the elite media, by sensationalizing and glamorizing the latest shooting, treating the perpetrator as some kind of twisted American Idol, is a far greater influencing factor in producing fame-seeking mass murdering copycats than any Hollywood production ever could.

All I could think was: why Coriolanus? I don't remember it being any more violent than the average Shakespearean tragedy. Titus Andronicus on the other hand, is as appalling as anything I've ever seen out of Hollywood.

And speaking of poor writing: Why does she even bring up Shakespeare when she has no answer to that argument? I mean none. Is it supposed to be self evident that Shakespeare isn't as disturbing as The Dark Knight? Because if you think that, you *haven't* seen Titus Andronicus.

Let's face it, the American film industry makes money by purveying pornography.

An example in extremis: The "Final Destination" series, distributed by Warner Brothers through New Line Cinema. Each of the five films is purely and simply about people getting killed in shocking and gruesome ways. There's hardly any plot, except to glue together the death scenes.

Each "Final Destination" film is pornography, period. They are all calculated to appeal to our prurient interest in graphic violence. That makes Warner Brothers a pornographer.

I think the public needs to realize that violence IS pornography. Violent movies, violent video games (the "first person shooter" games) all have consequences in the way children and adults relate to the world. We have to understand what these are, and make personal choices for ourselves and our families about the kind of lives we want to live.

Scott. Only if you confuse what is on the screen with reality.If anything the violence is an outlet. A 110 minute fantasy. Only the delusional would act on it. Or think that President Obama is a "good man".

Violence in popular culture has always been there... see the original Grimm fairytales, for one. This may sound odd, but I hope to some degree that the violence continues to be there in fiction, as a reminder of what can happen in the real world.

Violence isn't pornography. The way you talk about movies and computer games suggests strongly that you have no first-hand experience and are just repeating someone else's talking points.

I, for one, worry that we're causing problems in media by going too far the other way in sanitizing the real world. Kids today expect a perfect world where everything can be made nice; where everything bad can be fixed and good always triumphs over evil. The real world isn't like that, and kids need to know that what they do has consequences, sometimes permanent and tragic. Better they learn this lesson through fiction rather than through reality.

"... that no one thinks anyone can, or will, do anything to make our culture better. "

Why is culture being blamed for the derangement of the individual? We're all exposed to the same culture in this country, yet for every person that commits such an atrocity, there are literally millions who wouldn't even dream of doing so.

Culture is being blamed for this shooting? Yet, on other pages in these same news sites there are stories praising the people who shielded their companions from gunfire and died for it? They were at the same movie partaking in the same cultural event!!

At some point, these bloviators must understand an individual's cuplability in choosing to be deranged. It's too gullible and simplistic an out to blame "culture" for a man choosing evil.

Meh. I see a lot of people on this thread screwing up their mouths and kicking the high chair because nanny's trying to feed them something they don't like. Look, it's all well and good to reject the Nanny State, but the first step in not being a child in the hands of an angry mother is to take responsibility for your own choices, and that includes your own, personal contribution to society and culture.

Culture isn't synonymous with society, and neither are synonymous with government. We don't marry, we don't demand standards of public behavior, we don't punish and exclude those who put their own desires and financial interests ahead of public order. That's all on our heads.

Look, not long after we decided to place "inside the bedroom" outside of the area of the public interest, we let "inside the bedroom" rules become the template for how we regulate the public sphere. We have far too many people "scaring the horses" these days. That contributes to a degradation of public order, and that sucks.

Folks are bragging about the lower rates of violent crime, but that's comparing against a truly hellacious peak of public disorder and violence in the three "Boomer decades". It's still unacceptably high, and much of the improvement has been due to massive incarceration rates and the positive effects of demographic shifts. The culture had precious little to do with that.

The problem with trite arguments that "violence is just a fantasy" is that enjoying a movie requires suspension of disbelief.

You don't sit there and remind yourself constantly that it's a fantasy. You put your disbelief in suspense and actually experience what's on the screen at a visceral level.

It's the engagement in violence on that level that makes the violence pornographic. Just as watching pornography gives a man an erection, watching violence makes one's heart beat faster and, for a time, makes the viewer a part of the violence. (Disbelief is suspended.)

Violence is not innocent and harmless entertainment. It's likely that the Aurora shooter was living a fantasy that was fostered by watching movies. Trivialize this at your peril.

it's that well to do's like Noonan have no stomach for fighting Hollywood.

The Hays Office is looking better and better all the time.

Culture wars are code for the conservative's desire for / reliance upon control as a way to shape behavior.

It's a wonder "conservatives" ever have a conversation at all, as apparently our entire language is nothing but code.

And YMMV, Ritmo, but I tend to find that people who imagine conservatives desire to "control" people often intersect with those who are convinced that 1950s America was a wasteland of repression, stultification and conformity.

At the risk of sounding exactly like the sort of person I criticized Q for being on the "fat" thread the other day. . .

I see no, absolutely no reason that celluloid abominations such as the Saw, Hostel or Final Destination series should be allowed to exist, let alone trash like the endless Chainsaw Massacre and Hills Have Eyes remakes.

Violence done and evil punished is an ancient trope. But violence simply for the sake of wallowing - I can't (if you'll forgive the expression) stomach it.

A certain subset of the population is susceptible to these problems, and the culture today, with the violent and pornographic entertainment that is available, provides much more potential to trigger those individuals. The family and religion cultural aspects that worked to offset these negative influences are decreasing in strength.

Do I need to point out the problems inherent in letting government officials declare someone crazy and lock them up without due process?

Ah yes. Yet another person who puts all and undue weight on the person they can see (or imagine) - in this case, one not quite crazy, but committed anyway - far beyond the ones he cannot yet see (e.g. >10 dead in Aurora) - the inevitable future innocent victims of a too loose policy. Names added to their faces, later.

We commission studies that find no link between film violence and behavior. So why is the advertising industry so huge? People with big bucks are willing to put money into cute little commercials that induce us to buy stuff that is counter to our self-interest. Corporations believe what we see on TV influences our behavior to their benefit. Don't you believe what we see on TV influences our behavior?

The radio news here in D.C. reported this hour that police just raided a Maryland home and found a cache of weapons, and they believe that the owner was planning to go on an Aurora-type shooting spree.

So -- What movie did he see in the last few days to cause him to want to do that? What rap song did he hear that put the desire in him?

Or did he see all the publicity that this Aurora guy got and he similarly wanted to make a big splash?

Do violent video games teach you to want to kill, or act as catharsis so you don't want to commit violence as much?

A high school kid kills himself. A look through his playlist finds Metallica's "Fade to Black", so they conclude listening to music about suicide caused him to follow through. But I'm pretty well convinced that the song is the reason I'm still alive right now, because when I was troubled and depressed in my teens, I always felt better after screaming along to the song.

No one has said it yet, but it needs to be said: correlation is not causation.

But the first time I saw that movie it had a great horror impact as the over educated psycho coldly killed and ate people and removed their faces.

Um, t-guy... none of that's in the movie. In "Silence of the Lambs" Lecter kills one person on camera; the other murder (and the only face-removal) happens off-camera. He doesn't eat anyone at all; he just talks about doing it.

I was horrified when I saw the first Alien movie in the theater. I was sure that there would be a nationwide backlash against that Hollywood blockbuster (based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre btw), but there was none, and these days Alien looks almost tame.

It seems that these graphic depictions of horror and violence ought to be affecting us and I suppose they are, but it is not clearcut. Ed Gein was the real-life inspiration for Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs, and not the other way around. We've had real-life monsters in the US and everywhere else with and without Hollywood's help.

Fortunately monsters are rare. Short of totalitarian monitoring of everyone, I don't see how we stop them.

If we are truly concerned about violence in society and the overall blighting of the young, I suggest we look to broken families where the children are double, triple and quadruple more likely to have mental problems and violence.